What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“Received many intimations and advices, from numbers of our Subscribers.”

Boston Chronicle (January 2, 1769).

When the Boston Chronicle concluded its first year of publication, printers John Mein and John Fleeming inserted a lengthy notice that listed several proposed “Amendments and Additions.” These included “enlarg[ing] the size of our Paper one half more,” starting on the first Monday of January 1769. When that day arrived, however, Mein and Fleeming published a new address “To the PUBLIC” to explain that they had further revised their proposals in response to requests received “from numbers of our Subscribers.” Rather than a larger newspaper delivered once a week on Mondays, those subscribers stated a preference for an “additional Paper on THURSDAY, or SATURDAY.”

While certainly informal compared to modern standards, this feedback amounted to market research for the printers. Mein and Fleeming weighed the evidence before making their final determination about the new plan for their publication. In choosing between Thursday and Saturday for a second edition, they opted for Thursday due to “the greatest number of our Subscribers inclining to have it on that day.” Yet they did not wish to disappoint those who desired a Saturday edition. To that end, they devised an alternative when circumstances permitted: “to oblige our friends, who wish for part of the paper on SATURDAY evening, whenever the southern post arrives before seven o’clock, we shall publish four pages that night.” Subscribers who lived in town could send for their newspapers two hours after the arrival of the post. Any who declined to do so could depend on the newspaper being delivered on Monday as usual.

Mein and Fleeming underscored that they made these changes in acknowledgment of the needs and desires expressed by their customers: “this alteration is made at the request of a great number of our Subscribers, and is designed for the better entertainment of the whole.” The printers made it their “first and principal study to give them satisfaction.” In other words, when presented with the results of rudimentary market research, Mein and Fleeming adjusted their business model accordingly in order to better serve their customers. In so doing, they commenced a new publication schedule unlike that of any other newspaper in the city. The Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, the Boston Post-Boy, the Boston Weekly News-Letter, Draper’s Massachusetts Gazette, and Green and Russell’s Massachusetts Gazette all continued as weeklies. The Boston Chronicle became a semiweekly in response to customer demand, at least according to the address “To the PUBLIC” the printers inserted in the first issue for 1769.

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston Chronicle (December 12, 1768).

“The peculiar advantage of having most of their Advertisements preserved and generally in view.”

The masthead of the December 12, 1768, Boston Chronicle proclaimed that it was “VOL. I. NO. 52.” John Mein and John Fleeming, the publishers acknowledged the milestone in a notice that they inserted immediately before the other advertisements at the end of the issue. “THE first year of the Publication of the BOSTON CHRONICLE being now concluded,” the publishers proclaimed, “we take this opportunity of returning our thanks to all the Gentlemen and Ladies, who have contributed to support it.” Partly out of appreciation and partly out of enthusiasm for commencing another year of publication, Mein and Fleeming then outlined several “Amendments and Additions” to the plan for their newspaper.

Each of the six enumerated “Amendments and Additions” marketed the Boston Chronicle in one way or another. The first, for instance, stated that they would enlarge the size of the newspaper by half “without any additional expence to the Subscribers.” The change would commence with the first issue of 1769. This change would make space for the third, fourth, and fifth improvements to the newspaper: reviews of “every New Book of Note, published in Great-Britain,” more comprehensive reporting of “Religious Disputes,” and, most ambitiously, “Every piece of history, politics, entertainment, agriculture, or poetry, &c. &c. that shall be judged worthy of inserting.” Space constraints and “the length of the historical and political articles” had previously prevented Mein and Fleeming from including all the content they considered valuable to subscribers, but enlarged editions would remedy that. If all of this was not enough, the publishers also offered a premium to subscribers: “an elegant copper-plate [map], the size of a folio page.” The second of the “Amendments and Additions” stated that subscribers would receive this gift gratis sometime within the coming year. Mein and Fleeming envisioned it as an annual tradition.

The sixth and final improvement addressed advertising: “Advertisements will be inserted at a very reasonable price.—The Advertisers will enjoy the peculiar advantage of having most of their Advertisements preserved and generally in view, as the Papers are calculated to be bound up at the conclusion of the year.” Mein and Fleeming imagined that subscribers collected every issue of the Boston Chronicle throughout the year, with the intention of taking them to bookbinder to be bound into a single volume. Subscribers could then consult the “historical and political articles” later, but that was not the only content they would peruse. They would also encounter advertisements as they once again consulted the pages of the Boston Chronicle. According to Mein and Fleeming, the newspaper was not disposable. The advertisements were not ephemeral. Instead, both would continue to inform, educate, and influence people long after first published.

When they announced their “Amendments and Additions” to mark the first complete year of publishing he Boston Chronicle, Mein and Fleeming focused primarily on the benefits to subscribers, but not exclusively. They also promoted their newspaper as a mechanism for distributing advertisements, aiming to increase the number of paid notices as well as the number of subscribers.